How to YouTube – A Pixability Webinar Recap

I had the pleasure of joining in on Pixability’s latest webinar, YouTube for Marketers.  Make Videos! We’ve been preaching it for a while and it’s nice to finally see that the majority of marketers are finally on board.  Google loves video.  Businesses need video.  Companies have caught on, but after being filled with hope by the Dollar Shave Club, a lot of marketers have come up empty handed and thrown in the towel after their first attempt.  The truth is that video marketing is a lot of work and a lot of people are doing it wrong.

With that in mind, here are a handful of basic guidelines that were covered in Pixability’s webinar… but first, STATS!

There are a lot of video hosting sites out there, but as a general rule of thumb, stick to the king of video – YouTube (heard of it?).

Here are some Pointers for YouTube:

-Consistency is ideal.  Create a social media presence and flatter Google by posting videos regularly to YouTube.  Pixability claims there’s a correlation between the number of videos and success, where less isn’t more…(er) more is more.  It’s okay to mix in-house videos shot with your phone with highly produced videos.  The highly produced videos give you credibility, and the iPhone vids show that you’re active and creating content (which is good for customers and Google).

-TAGS!! Use them.  Don’t be shy here, either, because there’s no use rationing your tags for other videos.  It’s a good idea to have a base of tags to use in all of your videos in addition to unique tags.  The ‘base’ tags will help you show up in related videos.

-Take advantage of every branding opportunity YouTube provides for your channel.

• Upload an avatar.  If it’s a personality page, make it a face… if it’s a company, put a logo in here.
• When choosing a layout for your YouTube channel, go with the “Featured” option and feature your best video.
• Make playlists! Don’t be afraid to overlap videos.  Google loves playlists; so do YouTubers.
• Link your channel to your social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (jk))
• Write a channel description and add tags.  Remember you can add tags to your channel, not just individual videos.  Take advantage of all of these opportunities.

How to gauge success

If you’re going to invest money in video marketing, you’re probably going to want to make money in exchange… I think business-savvy folk call this ROI.  If you start video marketing and your web traffic goes off the charts but no visitors turn into customers, you might want to refocus your strategy.  Video is a great way to get in front of eyes, but you want the right eyes.  Have a specific goal, don’t send people to your homepage, make a targeted landing page.  Use A/B Testing combined with YouTube annotations.  YouTube provides great analytics too, so pay attention to what sites have embedded your video and take note of whether or not people ‘liked’ the video.  YouTube is a great way to get instant feedback, take advantage of it.  Toyota… take advantage of it (95% dislikes, ouch)!